Sudoku, do you?
by T'Pring
Summary: After the midway station is destroyed, Rodney wonders if having Sheppard as a friend is simply too risky. Something of a Tag to Midway.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: After a long break from writing, I started on this idea and could not get it to go where I wanted it to! So, here's what did happen, which is different from my usual action/adventure fare, but perhaps will be worth a moment of two of entertainment!_

Flashback 3 years ago: In the Void, returning to the Pegasus Galaxy on Board the Deadalus just after the siege of Atlantis

"It's a nine."

"I agree that most probably the nine goes there, but you need to prove that all other options – "

"McKay. It's a nine."

"You haven't checked against the other columns-"

"Just write the damn nine down in the box, McKay!"

Rodney tossed the pencil back and folded his arms across his chest. Sheppard snatched for it and scribbled a nine into the square in question, then flicked the pencil over several other boxes, jotting down other numbers in a seemingly random pattern. Rodney sighed, giving up on trying to teach Sheppard anything about proper methodology for solving the ridiculously inane Sudoku puzzles.

Instead, Rodney stretched and looked around the Deadalus' common room, noticing how many of the off duty crew and passengers were also scribbling over collections of Sudoku. The members of the Atlantis expedition seemed particularly interested in catching up with the trend that had caught on during their year-long separation from Earth. Rodney had found the first two or three he'd solved amusing. After that, it had become simple execution of logic, and he'd lost interest.

"See. It was a nine." Sheppard smacked the pencil down on the tabletop and lounged back into his chair, a smirk on his relaxed face.

Unable to resist, Rodney picked up the solved puzzle and checked it over for mistakes. He carefully concealed his surprise when he realized that not only was the puzzle solved correctly, but was also one of the toughest in the book.

"Yes. It all looks correct. Although how you solved all of it without a shred of proof behind your guesses is beyond me."

"I wasn't guessing." Sheppard sounded just a bit hurt by the accusation. Rodney only snorted.

"Then how did you figure the nine?" From his earlier look at the puzzle, Rodney knew that particular box could have only been deduced by a rather complicated bit of logic that he was sure was quite beyond Sheppard.

"I just knew it was a nine."

"You guessed."

"No. I _knew._"

"Yes, but _how_ did you know?"

Sheppard just shrugged and grinned an infuriating grin. "That, I couldn't tell you. I just knew. Something about how the patterns were bearing out just seemed to point at the nine. The rest fell into place after that."

Rodney frowned. Sheppard had a disturbing habit of surprising Rodney with more intelligence than he gave the Air Force pilot credit for. But even given past revelations, Rodney could not quite bring himself to believe that the man had used x-wing logic intuitively. He decided to take another approach.

"'You just knew' is hardly a dependable strategy. What happens if you guess wrong, Major?"

"I didn't guess. And it's Lieutenant Colonel, now. Remember that."

"Yes, yes. But even_Lieutenant Colonels_ make mistakes. Your method has great potential for exacerbating an error to the point of insolvability."

Sheppard blinked. "Say what?"

Rodney waved his hands in the air, "You don't check for proof as you go. If you do make a mistake, it could prove fatal."

Sheppard just stared. "It's a PUZZLE, McKay," he said.

An instant later, the ship's intercom buzzed. "_Colonel Sheppard. Report to Colonel Caldwell on the bridge. Colonel Sheppard…"_

"Gotta go. Do me a favor, put my book on my bunk for me."

Sheppard slid the Sudoku book over in front of Rodney, then walked briskly out of the common room. Rodney thumped the table with the book for a moment before curiosity got the best of him. He thumbed through the book looking for the puzzles that Sheppard had already solved. Now that he thought about it, he was surprised that Sheppard did puzzles at all. He seemed more the comic and coloring book type to Rodney.

Nearly half the pages were finished. Even more surprisingly, Sheppard had skipped over the easy pages in favor of the hardest. Rodney looked closer. He flipped page after page. As far as Rodney could tell, every solution was correct. The man had finished dozens of them accurately.

When had he had time to do them all? The Daedalus had been underway for a week into their two week long return trip to Atlantis. Despite Sheppard's frequent complaints about the long trip, Rodney knew that they'd been keeping him pretty busy. Something about formalizing his command on Atlantis and reorganizing the military base.

Rodney flipped faster, then finally paused on a page that seemed to have given Sheppard some trouble. Many of the boxes were smudged with erasing, the previous number, sometimes two numbers, still slightly visible under the final answer.

"Even Lt. Colonel's make mistakes," he muttered happily. He held the book closer and squinted at the layers of corrections. From what he could make out, Sheppard had done exactly as Rodney had warned him about. A problem early on had thrown off several other answers in a ripple effect of errors. Most people he'd seen working the puzzles would give up and start a new one at that point. But not Sheppard.

Rodney looked closer and realized that the man had painstakingly retraced every number, erasing and redoing, until he'd found the initial mistake. The final answers, those written on top of layers of wasted effort, were correct.

He closed the book and sat back in his chair, his arms folded over his chest again. For Rodney, watching how someone solved problems – or in this case, puzzles – was a valuable insight into that person. He'd spent the past year with Sheppard, battling the Wraith, Kolya, even killer hurricanes. Rodney grudgingly admitted that the newly christened Colonel had earned his promotion, and had even earned Rodney's respect in the way he reserved for those of limited but necessary use to him.

But Sheppard was reckless. His brash approach to the puzzles simply proved what Rodney had observed about the man so far.

_"I thought you should know, the first round was a draw."_ No surprises there.

_"Hit me with the defibrillator."_ Typical.

_"So long, Rodney."_

Rodney scrubbed his eyes, shakily, shoving aside the all-too-fresh memories of watching Sheppard fly a nuclear bomb into the belly of the hive ship. _"I'm going in."_

"I am too," Rodney announced to himself, pushing back his chair and rising. "Even brilliant scientists need sleep, too." He palmed the sudoku book, then left the common room. Sheppard's bunk was on the way to his own.

A few minutes later he threw the puzzles onto Sheppard's bed, stumbled the two doors down to his own. He sank onto the mattress and leaned over to tug off his boots, still thinking about Sheppard and puzzles. Now that they had a ZPM and a second chance on Atlantis, Rodney would have to keep an even closer eye on things. He was beginning to realize that it would probably fall to him to keep Sheppard out of even more trouble than he'd managed so far. Everyone else seemed smitten with the man. Only Rodney saw him for the loose cannon that he was, however brave and charming.

And as for friendship? Well, that was definitely out of the question. Men like Sheppard didn't make for good friends, Rodney decided firmly. Why take the chance of getting acquainted only to have to watch the man fly off on another suicide mission? No, he was stuck with Sheppard as military commander of Atlantis, and leader of his 'gate team. But it didn't take x-wing logic to figure out that one of these days, Sheppard would take a chance he couldn't recover from.

Rodney didn't intend to lose a friend when that happened.


	2. Chapter 2

Tag to Midway

It turns out that McKay had lied. John only made it about 12 hours before the incessant bickering, whining, and pedantics contest between McKay, Lee and Kavanaugh for the title of "biggest schmuck of the jumper" drove Sheppard to lock himself in the cockpit. To be fair, John hadn't slept in 36 hours. And the whole almost-suffocating-to-death-_again _thing took a lot out of a guy. Every joint in his body ached with weariness as he slumped into the pilot's chair.

He scrubbed his eyes, then stared out at the gently tumbling starscape for a long moment. A cloud of slowly expanding debris hung before the backdrop of the glowing Pegasus galaxy. Or was it the Milky Way? He'd spun so many times in the emptiness of the void that he didn't know up from down, even in the artificial gravity of the jumper.

What a crappy day.

The murmur of arguing continued to filter through the bulkhead door, sending John on a sudden rampage through the cockpit for earplugs, cotton balls, anything to shut out the noise. Perhaps, then, he could quiet the noise inside his head long enough to get the sleep he desperately needed. He found a pair of headphones under the co-pilot's panel and shoved them over his ears. He fell back into his chair, then sagged over the control panel, resting his head on his arms. The headphone cord dangled to the floor, unneeded, as John slowly slipped into the deep quiet of sleep.

------------------------

When John woke up, McKay was sitting in the co-pilot's chair, tapping quietly on his tablet computer. John jerked, then lurched back against the seat with a groan of protest. The headphones slipped off and fell around his neck. He blinked for a moment, then stared out the window until the blurry stars resolved back into pinpoints of light. The remnants of the station were no longer in view. John groaned again, finally remembering why he'd been asleep on his face in the first place.

"Good morning, sunshine," McKay said without turning from his work.

"I thought I locked the door."

"And I thought you'd know better. I hacked the lock."

"Oh."

McKay continued to tap, busy with some task he'd obviously invented for himself. John remained stuck to his seat, unable to muster even the energy to harass the intruder.

"You OK?" This time, John caught McKay's sidelong glance his way.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"What does that mean?"

"It means...yeah, I guess so."

"You slept for a long time."

John startled and glanced at his watch. It was going to be damn hard to keep track of time while they waited for rescue. "A long time? I was only out for...four hours."

"They were worried."

"I had a busy day," he snapped. "It's not enough that I'm stuck in here for a week, but I'm not allowed to sleep either?"

Mckay was silent and John thumped his hands on his thighs for a moment. He shifted restlessly, trying to relieve the aches in his shoulders and hips from sleeping hunched over. Then he ran his fingers through his hair and tapped his heel on the floor. He rolled his head to watch McKay, legs still bouncing.

"What exactly are you doing in here?"

"I am trying to boost the sensor sensitivity to be able to search through the station's debris for equipment to salvage. We might be able to find the deepspace transmitter array, or the Milky Way Stargate."

John sighed. "We tried dialing already. The Pegasus 'gate didn't even twitch. It's dead. What makes you think the other one would be any better off, even if it is still intact."

"It beats being back there." McKay finally pushed his laptop away, sat back in his seat with a weary slouch, and swiveled to face John directly.

"You've got a point."

McKay just watched him for another long moment until John began to squirm under the uncharacteristically intense scrutiny. He didn't really mind Rodney one-on-one or when they were with the rest of their team. The man could be incredibly annoying when he was sniffing butts with other scientists or chastising military who rubbed him the wrong way, but he usually let the chip on his shoulder fall off in John's company. John often wondered if it was because he had somehow earned McKay's respect, or if McKay had simply decided that John was no threat to his self-declared superiority. Either way, John was willing to tolerate McKay's intrusion, as long as he didn't get all weird – which is what he was doing.

"You sure you're OK?" McKay finally broke the awkward silence.

"I _will_ kick you back through that door –"

"Fine." Rodney abruptly swiveled his chair back to snatch up his tablet. "Then you should know that we decided to stick with station time, night and day. It's night now. We drew lots for the benches and turned out the lights a couple of hours ago."

"So why are you in here keeping me awake, McKay?" John could not figure out what McKay was up to. If he hadn't known better, he would have said the man was close to…hovering.

"I told you. They were worried. Your men. Remember them? Those people you pretend to be in charge of sometimes? Sergeant what's his name wanted to do a medical check on everyone who got stunned or nearly asphyxiated recently and I told him you were probably just in here sulking and it wasn't worth his getting his head bitten off and that I would keep an eye on you. And that's why I'm in here keeping you awake, Colonel."

John felt a small stab of guilt jolt his conscience. He _had_ left his guys in the jaws of the wolves back there. But they were good guys, they could take it. They were lucky to even be alive…

John shut down the thought before it went where he didn't want to go and directed his irritation at McKay instead.

"I'm fine, McKay. So you can stop the mother hen act and either get out or shut up." He snatched for the headphones, jammed them over his ears and slouched in the chair, arms crossed.

"That's all I needed. Sheppard acting like a three year old at naptime is a healthy Sheppard. Or a normal Sheppard, at least. Working within specs. You should get some sleep. You've had a busy day."

McKay's words were muffled through the foam on his ears, but not drowned out and John glared at the scientist as McKay began poking at his tablet again. For some reason, the dismissal felt even more annoying than the hovering. A day's worth of terror, adrenaline, combat-fatigue, exhaustion, and no small chunk of guilt suddenly surged into an eruption that no mere four hours of sleep could contain. He ripped off the headphones.

"Hell, McKay. I lost 10 good men on that station. Ten men who I led into an unwinnable standoff to defend a patch of ground that got blown up anyway. Meaning Atlantis is cut off from Earth _again_. Meaning we have no way of knowing if Stargate Command is still in one piece. And you're asking me if I'm OK? I'm not OK, McKay. I'm trapped in a tin can full of…of YOUs for at least a week without so much as a…a freakin' Sudoku book to kill the time. I'm not OK and it's been a hell of a lot more than a busy day. It's been a really, REALLY CRAPPY DAY!" John felt his voice rising, his face warming and his hands clenching, but the words sounded almost plaintive to his own ears. He opened and closed his mouth for a second longer, then he just sat.

McKay had frozen during the outburst, his fingers poised mid-equation over the tablet. There was a long, incredibly uncomfortable silence.

"Feel better?" McKay asked, flicking his eyes at John but remaining otherwise motionless.

John sagged and flopped his arms so they dangled below the seat of the armless chair. He winced as his shoulder flared in the position, then folded his hands on his lap instead. "Yeah. I do, actually."

McKay started tapping again. John felt anger melting away to be replaced by the familiar ache of regret. Regret he could deal with. Regret was just the dull remnant of sharper pain's healing. He scrubbed his face, then rubbed his eyes.

"I could sleep," he announced quietly.

"I already told you to."

"You should get some too. You've been at it as long as I have."

"Hmmm. Longer actually. You've already had a beauty nap, remember?"

"McKay!"

"Right. Alright. I'll sleep as soon as I finish this program."

John accepted the fiction, understanding that McKay worked through stress by, well, working. _Whereas I, apparently, work through stress by blowing up and hiding out_, he thought with a sigh bordering on embarrassment. He shifted in the pilot's chair for a moment, trying to find a comfortable position. With sudden inspiration, he swung the seat all the way around and propped his heels up on the chair behind. Now that was more like it. Crossing his arms, he jammed his hands under his elbows and closed his eyes.

Sleep was slow in coming to him again. Images of the battle on the station kept flashing through his mind, and he felt his heart speed a little with each glancing memory. This too was familiar. He'd learned after many battles to simply let them come. They'd only return with more force later if he shoved them aside now. At long last, weariness overcame the fears, and he drifted back into restless sleep, soothed by the relentless tapping of McKay's fingers on the keyboard.

-------------------------

Rodney kept shooting surreptitious glances as Sheppard settled himself into a comfortable position. When the man's restless twitching finally stilled, and he seemed to be breathing the deep breaths of sleep, Rodney took the opportunity to scan the man with his palm scanner. Finally convinced that Sheppard's vitals were normal, Rodney returned to his tablet. He closed one program and started another.

Every so often, he would shoot a look Sheppard's way. Despite what the scan said, Rodney hadn't missed the Colonel's shifting and small expressions of discomfort. Though Sheppard had apparently missed them for himself. Rodney was willing to bet money that Sheppard had a mild case of The Bends, a side effect of his brush with asphyxiation as the Midway station vented atmosphere. It would also explain the bruising along Sheppard's jawline and the shadow of bruises under his eyes. Though he was probably unaware of the fact, Sheppard had been in more danger from the sudden loss of air pressure than lack of oxygen.

Rodney just shook his head. He still didn't know how the man did it. How could he give an order that meant his almost certain death?

_"We're out of time. Vent the atmosphere."_

_"Can you make it to the jumper?"_

_"I'll try."_

He'd sounded annoyed. As if following orders were more important than taking the extra time to figure out a better solution. That's what Rodney did. He found better solutions. Only he hadn't. And for an agonizing 5 minutes, he'd thought Sheppard was dead.

Rodney glanced at Sheppard again, as if convincing himself he was really here. He snapped his fingers into the keys with a brief surge of annoyance. The man was a menace. Dangerous. To himself and especially those who happened to be caught in the event horizon of his influence.

"You're all pop culture and nonchalance when things are easy, aren't you Sheppard," Rodney began to mutter softly. "Flick the switch into soldier mode, and it's all Gung ho, GI Joe. Act first and ask for directions later."

_Can you make it to the jumper?_

_I don't know. I'll try._

Suddenly too angry to work, Rodney pushed the tablet aside and flung himself back in the chair, glaring at the Pegasus Galaxy through the viewscreen. With an honesty born of exhaustion, Rodney finally realized what had been bothering him since the moment he'd understood they were finally safe on the jumper:

Sheppard was a menace. Dangerous. To himself and especially those who happened to have become very good friends. How had he let that happen?

Losing Carson had been a shock, but Rodney had had no reason to ever believe that the mild mannered healer could be taken from them so suddenly, on their home soil. Losing Elizabeth had been devastating. But Rodney had had no cause to expect that she would abandon all her senses and walk out of the jumper into the arms of the replicators. Carson and Elizabeth were safe friends. They should have been his friends for years to come.

And yet, they were gone.

Sheppard snorted softly, rubbed his nose with the flop of a sleepy hand, then settled back into motionless rest.

They were gone and Sheppard – Lt. Colonel "vent the atmosphere", "climb the tower", "whatever he asks for don't do it", "I know you_ think_ you can fly just about anything", "why did you touch it" John Sheppard – was quietly sleeping next to him in a jumper in the emptiness of the void despite the absolute certainty that he should be quite dead. Again.

For the first time in a long time, Rodney remembered watching Sheppard solving Sudoku puzzles on the Dedalus and deciding that the Colonel was too reckless to allow a friendship.

_"We're out of time…"_

Sheppard had quickly grown bored of the puzzles, as did most of the expedition. Rodney hadn't seen him working on any in recent memory. It was odd that he had mentioned them just now.

_"Vent the atmosphere."_

Rodney wasn't sure how many more times he could brush up against Sheppard's death. It had been horrible a year and a half ago when Kolya had Sheppard at the wraith's mercy. It had been terrifying when the mysterious Travelers ship had snatched Sheppard's jumper within sight of the Stargate earlier this year. But today, it had been soul-numbingly unbearable to type the command that would condemn Sheppard to asphyxiation.

_"Can you make it to the jumper?"_

Rodney didn't know if he could survive Sheppard's friendship. It would be so much easier to back off, put distance between them, try not to allow himself to get any closer.

_"I don't know."_

----------------

Six hours or so later, John stirred at the sound of unconcerned conversation buzzing through the bulkhead door. He allowed himself the time to wake up slowly, enjoying, for once, the realization that there was no hurry. There was nowhere to go. His joints still ached, but the pain was just a dull reminder of events already fading in memory.

When he finally scrubbed his eyes and sat up enough to glance around the cockpit, he suddenly wondered if McKay had ever gone to sleep himself. A ripsnorting snore answered the question a moment later and John rolled his eyes. McKay was propped up in the co-pilot's chair, his feet also on the seat behind him.

Thinking he was hungry, and that he should make an appearance in the rear to reassure his would-be medic Sergeant, John stood quietly, stretched again, and began to tiptoe towards the bulkhead door. A strange thump caught his attention, and he looked at the floor, puzzled.

McKay's laptop and been propped right next to John's chair, situated so he would be sure not to miss it. It had fallen over as John moved. He picked up the tablet computer, tapping the screen to bring it out of sleep mode.

A brand new, freshly minted Sudoku puzzle filled the screen. In the corner, John could just make out a copyright notice crediting one Dr. R. McKay with the programming. The puzzle boasted a title of "Difficulty: Next to Impossible" and John chuckled softly. He would take McKay up on that little challenge! After breakfast.

"Thanks, buddy," John murmured, setting the tablet carefully down on the pilot's seat.

_"I'll try."_


End file.
